University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
MRS. SANDERSON MEETS HER GRANDSON AND I RETURN TO MY
FATHER'S HOME.

Livingston had been gone three or four days when, one
morning, Henry's surgical attendant came down stairs from his
regular visit to the young man, and announced that his patient
was sitting in a chair by the window, and that he would soon
be able to take a little passive exercise in the open air. Having
given me directions with regard to getting him back to his bed,
when he should become tired with sitting, he went away. The
sudden realization that Henry was so near the point of perfect
recovery sent the blood to my heart with a dull throb that made
me tremble. I knew that he would endeavor to get away as
soon as possible, and that he would go whenever his mother
should consider it safe for him to be separated from her.

“Are you well to day?” I said, lifting my eyes to my
aunt.

“Perfectly well.”

“Are you willing to have a long talk with me this morning?”
I inquired.

She looked at me with a quick, sharp glance, and seeing that
I was agitated, replied with the question: “Is it a matter of
great importance?”

“Yes, of the greatest importance.”

“H'm! You're not in love, I hope?”

“No,” I responded, coloring in spite of the terrible depression
that had come upon me, “though I probably should not
tell of it if I were.”

“I'm sure I don't see why you shouldn't,” she answered
quickly.

“No,” I said, “it has nothing to do with that. I wish it
had, but it doesn't look as if anything of that kind would ever
come to me.”

“Psh! You're a boy. Don't worry yourself before your
time.”

We were seated in the little library where she first received
me. I rose from my chair, went to the door that opened into
the hall, and locked it. The door into the dining-room stood
ajar, and I threw it wide open. Then I went back to my chair
and sat down. She watched these movements in silent astonishment,
and her eyes fairly burned with excited curiosity when
I concluded them.

Looking into the dining-room upon the picture that still hung
where I had replaced it, I said: “Aunt, you must forgive
me; but I have learned all about that picture, and I know the
whole history of the person whom it represents.”

“Who has been base enough to tell you?” she almost
screamed.

“A person who wishes no harm either to you or me,” I
replied.

She had risen to her feet at the first announcement, but she
sank back into her chair again, and covered her face with her
hands. Suddenly steeling herself against the feelings that were
overwhelming her, she dropped her hands, and said, with a
voice equally charged with fright and defiance: “So, this is
the important business, is it! You have listened to the voice
of a slanderer, who has represented me to be little better than
a fiend; and I am to be lectured, am I? You, to whom I have
given my bread and my fortune—you, to whom I have given
my love—are turning against me, are you? You have consented
to sit still and hear me maligned and condemned, have
you? Do you wish to forsake me? Have I done anything to
deserve such treatment at your hands? Does my presence
defile you? Do I go about meddling with other people's business?
Have I meddled with anything that was not my own?
I would like to know who has been poisoning your mind against

me. Has there been anything in my treatment of you that
would lead you to think me possessed of the devil?”

She poured out these words in a torrent so impetuous and
continuous that I could not even attempt to interrupt her; and it
was better that she should spend the first gush of her passion without
hinderance. It was to me a terrible revelation of the
condition of her mind, and of the agitations to which it was
familiar. This was doubtless the first utterance to which those
agitations had ever forced her.

I paused for a minute to collect my thoughts, while she
buried her face in her hands again. Then I said: “Mrs. Sanderson,
I have noticed, since my return from college particularly,
that you have been in trouble. I have seen you many times
before that picture, and known that it was associated in your
mind with distressing thoughts. It has troubled me, because it
has given me the impression that I am in some way, directly or
indirectly, connected with it. I have sought for the explanation
and found it. No one has prejudiced my mind against you, as I
will prove to you by such a sacrifice as few men have been called
upon to make. You have been very kind to me, and I do not
now see how it is possible for me ever to cease to be grateful to
you. You have been my most generous and indulgent benefactress,
and it is partly because I am grateful, and desire to
prove my gratitude, that I have sought this interview.”

She looked up to me with a dazed, distressed expression
upon her sharpened features, as if waiting for me to go on.

“There was once a little boy,” I said, “who grew up in this
old house, under his mother's care; and then he went away,
and went wrong. His mother was distracted with his ingratitude
and his excesses, and finally cut him adrift, with the means
of continuing his dissipations. After a time he married one of
God's own angels.”

“You know nothing about it,” she interrupted, spitefully.
“You know nothing about her. She was a poor girl without any
position, who managed to weave her net about him and inveigle
him into marriage. I cursed her then, and I curse her still.”

“Don't, aunt,” I said. “I am sure you have done some
things in your life that you are sorry for, and I know you will
be sorry for this.”

“Don't lecture me, boy.”

“I don't lecture you. I don't presume to do anything of
the kind, but I know I speak the truth.”

“Well, then, what about the angel?”

“She did her best to make him what his mother had failed
to make him.”

“And the angel failed,” she said contemptuously. “Certainly
a woman may be excused for not accomplishing what a superior
being failed to accomplish.”

“Yes, the angel failed, mainly because his mother would not
help her.”

“I tell you again that you know nothing about it. I am a
fool for listening to another word.”

It was a strange thing to me, as I sat before this agitated
woman, quarreling with her own history, and helplessly angry
with me and with the unknown man who had given me my information,
to find myself growing cool and strong with every burst
of her passion. I had found and pierced the joints of her
closely-knit harness. I was in the center of the rankling secret
of her life, and she was self-contained no longer. I was in
power, and she was fretfully conscious that she was not.

“Yes, the angel failed, because his mother would not help
her. I presume the mother intended to drive that angel to forsake
him, and compel him to return to herself. If she did not
have so good a motive as this, she intended to drive him to the
grave into which he was soon gathered.”

“Oh, Arthur! Arthur! Don't say it! don't say it!”

The anger was gone, and the old remorse which had been
eating at her heart for years resumed its sway. She writhed
in her chair. She wrung her hands. She rose and paced the
room, in a painful, tottering way, which distressed me, and
made me fear that I had been harsh, or had chosen the wrong
plan for approaching her and executing my purpose.

“Yes, aunt, the woman was an angel. If she had not been,
she would have become a torment to you. Did she ever write
to you? Did she ever ask a favor of you? Do you suppose
that she would ever receive from you a farthing of the wealth
that her husband would rightly have inherited, unless first you
had poured out your heart to her in a prayer for forgiveness?
Has she acted like a mercenary woman? No, aunt, it is you
who know nothing about her.”

“She was nothing to me,” Mrs. Sanderson said. “She
never could have been anything to me.”

“That you don't know.”

“Well, what else have you to say?”

“She is living to-day, and, in a self-respectful way, is earning
her own livelihood.”

“I tell you again she is nothing to me,” my aunt responded.
“She is doing to-day what I presume she did before her marriage.
I know of no reason why she should not earn her living.
She probably knows me well enough to know that I will do
nothing for her, and can be nothing to her. If you have taken
it into your head to try to bring me to recognize her and give
her money, I can tell you that you have undertaken a very
foolish and fruitless enterprise. If this is all you have to say
to me, we may as well stop our conversation at once. It is a
boy's business, and if you know what is for your own good you
will never allude to her again.”

She rose impatiently as if determined to close the interview,
but I did not stir; so, seeing me determined, she sat down
again.

“Mrs. Sanderson,” I said, “is your heart satisfied with me?
Have you not, especially in these last years and months, longed
for some one of your own blood on whom to bestow your affections?
I grant that you have treated me like a son. I
grant that I not only have nothing to complain of, but that I
have a thousand things to be grateful for. You have tried to
love me. You have determined with all your power of will to
make me everything to yourself; but, after all, are you satisfied?

Though one of your kindred, my blood does not come near
enough to yours to make me yours. Have you not longed to
do something before you die to wipe out the memories that
haunt you?”

She watched me with sad, wide-open eyes, as I firmly and
tenderly said all this, and then, as if she could conceive of but
one conclusion, her anger rose again, and she exclaimed:
“Don't talk to me any more about this woman! I tell you I
will have nothing to do with her.”

“I am saying nothing about this woman, aunt,” I responded.
“I am going to talk about some one besides this woman, for
she had a child, of whom your son was the father.”

“What?”

Half exclamation, half interrogation, the word pierced my
ears like a scream.

“Mrs. Sanderson, you are the grandmother of as noble a
man as breathes.”

She cried; she laughed; she exclaimed: “Oh, Arthur! Oh
God!” She covered her face; she threw her handkerchief
upon the floor; she tore open her dress to relieve her throbbing
heart, and yielded herself to such a tumult of conflicting passions
as I had never witnessed before—such as I hope I may
never be called upon to witness again. I sat frightened and
dumb. I feared she would die—that she could not survive
such agitations.

“Ha! ha! ha! I have a grandson! I have a grandson!
Oh, Arthur! Oh, God! Is it so? Is it so? You lie! You
know you lie! You are deceiving me. Is it so, Arthur? Say
it again. It can't be so. I should have known it. Somebody
has lied to you. Oh, how could you, how could you deceive
an old woman, with one foot in the grave—an old woman who
has loved you, and done all she could for you? How could
you, Arthur?”

Thus she poured out her emotions and doubts and deprecations,
unmindful of all my attempts to interrupt her, and I saw
at once that it was the only mode by which she could ever become

composed enough to hear the rest of my story. The
storm could only resolve itself into calm through the processes
of storm. When she had exhausted herself she sank back in her
chair. Then, as if moved by an impulse to put me under the
strongest motive to truthfulness, she rose and came to me.
With a movement so sudden that I was entirely unprepared for
it, she threw herself upon my lap, and clasping her arms around
my neck, placed her lips close to my ear, and said in a voice
surcharged with tender pleading: “Don't deceive me, dear!
Don't be cruel to me! I have never used you ill. Tell me
all about it, just as it is. I am an old woman. I have only a
little while to live.”

“I have told you everything just as it is,” I responded.

“And I have a grandchild?”

“One that you may love and be proud of.”

“And can I ever see him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you suppose he will come to live with me, if I ask
him?”

“I don't know.”

“Does he hate me?”

“I don't think he hates anybody.”

“Is he with his mother?”

“Yes.”

“Is he fond of her?”

“So fond of her,” I answered, “that he will accept no invitation
from you that does not include her.”

“I take it all back, Arthur,” she said. “He is right. He
is a Bonnicastle. When can I see him?”

“Soon, I think.”

“And I have really a grandson—a good grandson? how
long have you known it?”

“Only a few days.”

“Perhaps I shall not live forty-eight hours. I must see him
at once.”

“You shall see him soon.”

Then she patted my cheek and kissed me, and played with
my hair like a child. She called me her good boy, her noble
boy. Then, struck suddenly with the thought of the changes
that were progressing in her own mind and affections, and the
changes that were imminent in her relations to me, she rose and
went back to her chair. When I looked her in the face again,
I was astonished at the change which a single moment of reflection
had wrought upon her. Her anger was gone, her remorse
had vanished, her self-possession had come back to her, enveloping
her as with an armor of steel, and she was once more
the Mrs. Sanderson of old. How was she to get rid of me?
What arrangement could she make to get me out of the house,
loosen my hold upon my expectations, and instal the rightful
heir of her wealth in her home? She turned to her new life
and her new schemes with the eager determination of a woman
of business.

“What has led you to this announcement, Arthur?” she
inquired.

“A wish to do justice to all the parties to whom it relates,”
I replied.

“You have done right,” she said, “and of course you have
counted the cost. If my grandson comes here, you will not
expect to stay. Have you made any plans? Have you any
reward to ask for your sacrifice? I trust that in making up
your mind upon this point, you will remember what I have done
for you. You will find my expenses on your account in a book
which I will give you.”

The cool cruelty of the woman, at this supreme moment of
her life, angered and disgusted me. I bit my lips to keep
back the hot words that pressed for utterance. Then, with all
the calmness I could command, I said: “Do you suppose that
I have come to you to-day to sell your grandson to you for
money? Do you suppose that your dollars weigh a pin with

me? Can't you realize that I am voluntarily relinquishing the
hopes and expectations of a lifetime? Can't you see that I
am going from a life of independence to one of labor and
struggle?”

“Don't be angry, Arthur,” she responded coolly. “I have
given you your education, and taken care of you for years. I
have done it under the impression that I had no heir. You tell
me that I have one, and now I must part with you. You foresaw
this, and I supposed that you had made your plans for it. The
simple question is, how much do you want in consideration of
your disappointment? How are we to separate, so that you
shall feel satisfied that I have done you justice?”

“I have no stipulations to make,” I answered; “I understand
that you have done much for me, and that I have done
very little for you, indeed; that I have very poorly improved
the privileges you have bestowed upon me. I understand that
you do not consider yourself under the slightest obligation to
me, and that so soon as you may get your grandson into your
possession, through my means, you will drop me and be glad to
be rid of me forever.”

“You speak bitterly, Arthur. I shall always be interested in
your welfare, and shall do what I can to serve you; but when
we separate we must be quits. You know my mode of doing
business. I exact my rights and pay my dues.”

“I have no bargains to make with you, Mrs. Sanderson,” I
said. “We are quits now. I confess that I have had a dream
of travel. I have hoped to go away after this change in my
life, and to forget it among new scenes, and prepare myself to
take up and bear a burden for which my life here has done
much to unfit me. I have dreamed of getting away from Bradford
for a time, until the excitement that will attend these
changes shall have blown over. I confess that I shrink from
meeting the questions and sneers that await me; but we are
quits now.”

“Have you any idea what the expenses of a foreign tour
will be?” she inquired in a cool, calculating tone.

“Mrs. Sanderson, you have just come into the possession of
the most precious knowledge the world holds for you, and
through it you expect to receive the great boon of your life.
All this comes through me. Neither your daughter-in-law nor
your grandson would ever have made themselves known to you,
and now, when I have sacrificed the expectations of a life to
them and to you, you talk about the price of a foreign trip for
me, as if you were bargaining for a horse. No, madam; I
wash my hands of the whole business, and it is better for us both
to talk no more about this matter. We are quits to-day. I
shall feel better by and by, but you have disappointed me and
made me very unhappy.”

Even while I talked, I could see her face harden from
moment to moment. Her heart had gone out toward her heir
with a selfish affection, which slowly, quietly, and surely shut out
every other human being. She grudged me every dollar of her
fortune on his behalf. The moment she ceased to regard me as
her heir, I stood in the same relation to her that any other poor
young man in Bradford occupied. Her wealth was for her grandson.
She would pay to him, on his father's account, every dollar
she held. She would lavish upon him every affection, and every
service possible. She would offer herself and her possessions
to atone for wrongs for which her conscience had upbraided her
more and more, as her life had approached its close. She
longed for this consummation, and looked to it for peace.

Thus I reached the moment of transition, and in disappointment
and bitterness—feeling that my sacrifice was not appreciated,
and that my benefactress had lost all affection for and
interest in me—I took up the burden of my own life, determined
that on no consideration would I receive, beyond the clothes I
wore, one dollar more of the fortune on which I had lived.

“When can I see my grandson?”

“When you choose.”

“To day?”

“Yes.”

“Bring him to me.”

“I must go to my room first,” I said.

I mounted to my chamber, and threw myself into my
accustomed chair by the window. I had passed into a new
world. The charming things about me, which I had counted
my own, were another's. The old house and the broad, beautiful
acres which stretched around it were alienated forever. I
realized that every dollar that had been bestowed upon me,
and every privilege, service, and attention I had received, had
come from a supremely selfish heart, through motives that sought
only to fill an empty life, and to associate with an honored
ancestral name the wealth which could not be taken out of the
world with its possessor. A mercenary value had been placed
upon every sentiment of gratitude and respect and love which
my benefactress had inspired in me. I had been used as a
thing of convenience, and being a thing of convenience no
longer, I was dropped as a burden. I was humiliated, shamed,
angered by the way in which I had been treated, but I was
cured. The gifts that I had received looked hateful to me. The
position I had occupied—the position in which I had not
only grown to be content, but in which I had nursed and developed
a degree of aristocratic pride—seemed most unmanly. I
had been used, played with, petted, fed with daily indulgences
and great promises, and then cast away, there being no further
use for me.

“Never again!” I said to myself—“never again! I would
not take another dollar from this estate and its owner to keep
myself from starving.”

The dream of travel was shattered. My new life and relations
were squarely before me. Where and what I should be
in a week I did not know. What old friends would fall away
from me, what new friends I should make, how I should earn
the bread which had thus far been supplied, was all uncertain.

I believed, however, that I had done my duty; and out of all
my shame and disappointment and disgust and apprehension,
there rose within me a sentiment of self-respect and a feeling
of strength. And when I thought of all the circumstances

that had conspired to bring me to this point, I could not doubt
that Providence—the great will that embraces all wills—the
supreme plan that subordinates and weaves into serviceable
relations all plans—the golden fabric that unrolls from day to
day, with the steady revolutions of the stars, and rolls up again,
studded thick with the designs of men—had ordered everything,
and ordered it aright. It was best for me that I had gone
through with my indulgences and my discipline. It was best
for me that I had passed through the peculiar experiences of
my life. It was best for Mrs. Sanderson that she had been
tormented, and that, at last, she was passing into the hands that
were strong and steady—hands that would lead her aright—
hands into which she was ready to throw herself, with self-abandoning
love and trust. It was best that Henry had struggled
and learned the worth of money, and acquired sympathy and
respect for the poor. It was best that the feet of all the persons
concerned in this great change of relations should be
brought together at last, by a series of coincidences that
seemed well-night miraculous.

One thing struck me as being very singular, viz.: that Mrs.
Sanderson was so easily satisfied that she had a grandson, and
that I not only knew him, but that he was close at hand. It
only showed how eagerly ready she was to believe it, and to
believe that I had prepared everything to satisfy her desire.
In another frame of mind—if another frame of mind had been
possible—she would have questioned me—doubted me—put
me to the proof of my statements; but she was ready to
accept anything on my simple assurance. After sitting quietly
for an hour, I rose with a long sigh. I had still the duty of
presenting Henry Sanderson—for that was his real name—to
his grandmother. My heart throbbed wildly every time the
thought of this meeting came to me. I had said nothing to
Henry, for I knew that it would distress him beyond measure,
—nay, that, disabled as he was, he would contrive some way
to get out of the house and out of the town. Nothing but a
sense of freedom from detection and discovery had ever reconciled

him and his mother to an hour's residence in The Mansion.
Hidden away in this New England town, toward which they had
drifted from the far South, partly on the current of circumstances,
and partly by the force of a desire to see and know the
early home and associations of the husband and father, they
did not doubt that they could cover their identity so perfectly
that it would not be suspected. Henry had studiously kept
away from the house. His mother had met Mrs. Sanderson
entirely by accident, and had taken a sweet and self-amusing
revenge by compelling her to love and trust her. They had
confided their secret to but one man, and he had had their
permission to confide it to his family. Through all these long
years, the two families had been intimate friends, and Mr. Bradford
had endeavored in every possible way to obtain their consent
to the course he had pursued, but in vain. After the
death of Mrs. Sanderson, he would doubtless have informed
me of Henry's natural claims to the estate, relying upon my
sense of justice and my love for him for its division between
us; but he saw that my prospects were ruining me, and so had
taken the matter into his own hands, simply confiding the facts
of the case to my father and Mr. Bird, and acting with their
advice and consent.

I drew out my trunk, and carefully packed my clothing. Not
an article in the room that was not necessary to me did I take
from its place. It would be Henry's room, and all the choice
ornaments and appointments that I had had the happy pains to
gather, were left to please his eye and remind him of me. The
occupation, while it pained me, gave me strength and calmness.
When the work was done, I locked my trunk, put the key in
my pocket, and was about to leave the room when there came
to me the sense of a smile from the skies. A cloud had been
over the sun, and as it passed a flood of sunlight filled the room,
growing stronger and stronger until my eyes were almost blinded
by the sweet effulgence. I was not superstitious, but it seemed
as if God had given me His benediction.

I turned the key in my door, and bowed at my bed. “Dear

Father,” I said, “at last nothing stands between Thee and me.
That which I have loved better than Thee is gone, and now I
beg Thee to help me and lead me in Thine own way to Thyself.
I shrink from the world, but Thou hast made it. I shrink from
toil and struggle, but Thou hast ordained them. Help me to
be a man after Thine own heart. Give me wisdom, guidance,
and assistance. Help me to lay aside my selfishness, my love
of luxury and ease, and to go down heartily into the work of
the world, and to build my life upon sure foundations.”

Then there rose in me a flood of pity and charity for one
who had so long been my benefactress; and I prayed for her—
that in her new relations she might be blessed with content and
satisfaction, and that her last days might be filled with something
better than she had known. I forgave her for her quick
and complete renunciation of myself, and the cruel wounds she
had inflicted upon my pride, and felt the old good-will of childhood
welling in my heart. I enveloped her with my charity. I
crowned her with the grace of pardon.

When I went down stairs I found her awaiting me in the room
where I had left her. She sat holding a paper in her hand. She
had dressed herself in her best, as if she were about to receive
a prince. There was a bright spot of red on either thin and
wrinkled cheek, and her eyes shone like fire.

“You are sure you have made no mistake, Arthur?” she
said, with a voice quite unnatural in its quavering sharpness.

“Quite sure,” I answered.

“This,” said she, holding up her paper, “is my will. There
is no will of mine beside this in existence. I have no time to
ask my lawyer here to-day to make another. Life is uncertain,
and there must be no mistake. I wish you to go with me to
the kitchen.”

She rose and I followed her out. I could not imagine what
she would do, but she went straight to the old-fashioned fireplace,
where the dinner was cooking, and holding the paper in
her hands, opened it, and asked me to read the beginning of it
and the signatures. I did so, and then she laid it upon the

[ILLUSTRATION]

The old cook regarded us in wondering silence.

[Description: 587EAF. Illustration page. Image of three figures standing in front of a lit fireplace. One woman has her hands on her hips. She watches an older woman put a piece of paper into the fire. A young man stands next to the older woman, he is griping a chair back tightly with both hands.]

coals. The quick flame shot up, and we both looked on in
silence, until nothing was left of it but white ashes, which a
breath would scatter. The elements had swallowed all my claim
to her large estate. The old cook regarded us in wondering
silence, with her hands upon her hips, and watched us as we
turned away from the fire, and left her alone in her domain.

When we returned to the library, Mrs. Sanderson said: “The
burning of that will is equivalent to writing another in favor of
my grandson; so, if I make no other, you will know the reason.”

She pressed her hand upon her heart in a distressed way, and
added; “I am as nearly ready as I ever can be to see—”

“Henry Sanderson,” I said.

“Is that his name? Is that his real name?” she asked,
eagerly.

“It is.”

“And it will all go to Henry Sanderson!”

The intense, triumphant satisfaction with which she said this
was almost enough, of itself, to repay me for the sacrifice I
had made.

“Mrs. Sanderson,” I said, “I have put into my trunk the
clothes I need, and when I go away I will send for them. I
have left everything else.”

“For Henry—my Henry Sanderson!”

“Yes, for your Henry; and now I must go up and see my
Henry, and Mrs. Belden; for after I have presented your grandson
to you I shall go away.”

I mounted the stairs with a throbbing heart, and a face that
told the tale of a terrible excitement and trouble. Both Henry
and his mother started as I came into the room, and simultaneously
uttered the words, “What is it, Arthur?”

“Nothing, except that my aunt and I have had a talk, and I
am going away.”

A quick, involuntary glance passed between the pair, but
both waited to hear my announcement.

“I am glad you are here,” I said. “You can stay as long

as you wish, but I am going away. I shall see you again, but
never as an inmate of this house. I want to thank you for all
your kindness and love, and to assure you that I shall always
remember you. Mrs. Belden, you never kissed me: kiss me
now.”

The dear woman looked scared, but obeyed my wish. I sat
down on Henry's bed and laid my head beside his. “Good-by,
old boy; good-by! Thank you for all your faithfulness to
me and for your example. I hope some time to be half as
good as you are.”

My eyes were flooded with tears, and both Mrs. Belden and
Henry were weeping in sympathy.

“What is it, Arthur? what is it? Tell us. Perhaps we can
help you.”

“Whatever it is, it is all right,” I answered. “Some time
you will know, and you will find that I am not to blame.”

Then I shook their hands, went abruptly out of the room,
and ran down stairs to Mrs. Sanderson. She saw that I was
strangely agitated, and rose feebly as I entered.

“I wish you to go up stairs with me before I leave,” I said.
“Will you be kind enough to go with me now?”

There was no dawning suspicion in her heart of what I
had prepared for her. She had expected me to go out and
bring in a stately stranger for whose reception she had prepared
her toilet. She had wondered how he would look, and
by what terms she should address him.

I gave her my arm and we slowly walked up the stairs together,
while my heart was beating so heavily that I could hear
it, blow upon blow, in my ears. I knocked at Henry's door
and entered. The moment Henry and his mother saw us together,
and caught the agitated look that both of us wore, they
anticipated the announcement that was imminent, and grew
pale as ghosts.

“Mrs. Sanderson,” I said, without offering her a seat, “this
is Mrs. Belden Hulm, your daughter-in-law, and this (turning

to Henry) is your grandson, Henry Sanderson. May God
bless you all!”

I dropped her arm and rushed to the door. A hurried
glance behind me showed that she was staggering and falling.
Turning swiftly back, I caught her, while Mrs. Hulm supported
her upon the other side, and together we led her to Henry's
bed. Then she dropped upon her knees and Henry threw his
arms around her neck, and said softly: “Grandmother!”

“My boy, my boy!” was all she could say, and it was
enough.

Then I left them. I heard Henry say: “Don't go,” but I
did not heed him. Running down stairs, with limbs so weak
with excitement that I could hardly stand, I seized my hat
in the hall, and went out of doors, and hurriedly took my
way toward my father's house. I did not even cast a glance
at the Bradford residence, so absorbed was I in the events
in which I had been an actor. The vision of the three
persons clustered at Henry's bed, the thought of the powerful
emotions that were surging in them all, the explanations that
were pouring from Henry's lips, the prayers for forgiveness that
my old benefactress was uttering, and the dreams of the new
life of The Mansion which I had inaugurated blotted out the
sense of my own sacrifice, and made me oblivious to all around
me. Men spoke to me on the street, and I remembered afterwards
that I did not answer them. I walked in a dream, and
was at my father's door before I was aware. I felt that I was
not ready to go in, so I turned away and continued my walk.
Up the long streets I went, wrapped in my dream. Down
through the busy life along the wharves I wandered, and looked
out upon the water. The sailors were singing, children were
playing, apple-women were chaffing, but nothing could divert
me. My heart was in the room I had left. The scene was
burnt indelibly upon my memory, and no new impression could
take its place.

Slowly I turned toward home again. I had mastered myself
sufficiently to be able to think of my future, and of the necessities

and proprieties of my new position. When I reached my
father's house, I found Mrs. Sanderson's man-servant—old
Jenks's successor—waiting at the gate with a message from
Henry, desiring my immediate return to The Mansion, and requesting
that I bring with me my sister Claire. This latter
request was one that brought me to myself. I had now the
responsibility of leading another through a great and unanticipated
excitement. Dismissing the servant, with a promise to
obey his new master's wish, I went into the house, and found
myself so much in self-possession that I told Claire with calmness
of the message, and refrained from all allusion to what had
occurred. Claire dressed herself quickly, and I could see as
she presented herself for the walk that she was full of wonder.
Nothing was said as we passed out. There was a strange
silence in the family. The message meant a great deal, and
all so thoroughly trusted Henry that no questions were asked.

When we were away from the house, I said: “Claire, you
must be a woman to-day. Strange things have happened.
Brace yourself for anything that may come.”

“What can you mean? Has anything happened to—to
him?”

“Yes, much,—much to him, and much to me; and something
very strange and unexpected will happen to you.”

She stopped short in the street, and grasping my two hands
nervously, exclaimed: “Tell me what it is.”

“My dear,” I said, “my life at Mrs. Sanderson's has ceased.
I am no more her heir, for Henry is discovered to be her own
grandson.”

“You deceive me; you can't mean it.”

“It is just as I tell you.”

She burst into a fit of weeping so passionate and uncontrollable
that in a low voice I said, “You must command yourself.
You are observed.”

We resumed our walk, but it was a long time before she
could speak. At length she said, “I am so sorry for you, and
so sorry for myself. I do not want it so. It changes all my

plans. I never can be to him what I could be if he were poor;
and you are to work. Did he know he was her grandson?”

“Yes, he has always known it.”

“And he never told me a word about it. How could he
treat me so like a child?”

She was half angry with the thought that he had shut from
her the most important secret of his life. As to the fortune
which was opened to her, it did not present to her a single
charm. The thought of it oppressed and distressed her. It
made her life so large that she could not comprehend it. She
had had no natural growth up to it and into it.

When we reached The Mansion she was calm; and it seemed,
as we stood at the door and I looked inquiringly into her face,
as if her beauty had taken on a maturer charm while we had
walked. I led her directly to Henry's room, and there, in the
presence of Mrs. Sanderson, who sat holding Henry's hand as
if she were determined that her newly-found treasure should
not escape her, and in the presence of Henry's mother, neither
of whom she either addressed or regarded, she stooped and received
her lover's kiss. I saw simply this, and with tears in
my eyes went out and closed the door softly behind me. What
occurred during that interview I never knew. It was an interview
so tenderly sacred that neither Henry nor Claire ever alluded
to it afterwards. I went down stairs, and awaited its
conclusion. At the end of half an hour, I heard voices whispering
above, then the footsteps of Mrs. Sanderson going to
her chamber, and then the rustle of dresses upon the stairs.
I went out into the hall, and met Mrs. Hulm and Claire with
their arms around each other. Their eyes were wet, but they
were luminous with a new happiness, and I knew that all had
been settled, and settled aright.

“Henry wishes to see you,” said his mother.

I cannot tell how much I dreaded this interview. I knew
of course that it would come, sooner or later, and I dreaded it
as much on Henry's account as on my own.

I sat down by his bed, and gave to his eager grasp both

my hands. He looked at me with tears rolling down his
cheeks, with lips compressed and with the perspiration standing
unbrushed from his forehead, but without the power to speak a
word. I pulled out my handkerchief, and wiped his forehead
and his cheeks.

“Are you happy, Henry?” I said.

“Yes, thank God and you,” he answered, with choking emotion.

“So am I.”

“Are you? Are you? Oh Arthur! What can I ever do
to show you my gratitude? How can I look on and see you
toiling to win the bread you have voluntarily given to me?”

“You have had your hard time, and I my easy one. Now
we are to change places, that's all, and it is right. You have
learned the value of money, and you will spend this which has
come to you as it ought to be spent.”

“But it is not the money; it is the home of my father—the
home of my ancestors. It is a home for my mother. It is
rest from uncertain wandering. I cannot tell you what it is.
It is something so precious that money cannot represent it. It
is something so precious that I would willingly work harder all
my life for having found it. And now, my dear fellow, what
can I do for you?”

“Nothing—only love me.”

“But I must do more. Your home must be here. You
must share it with me.”

“No, Henry, the word is spoken. You have come to your
own, and I shall go to mine. My lot shall be my father's lot,
until I can make it better. We shall be friends forever. The
surrender I have made shall do me more good than it has done
you. You did not absolutely need it, and I did. You could
do without it and I could not. And now, let's not talk about
it any more.”

We embraced and kissed as if we had been lovers, and I left
him, to walk back with Claire. That night the story was all
told in our little home. My trunk was brought and carried to

my bare and cramped chamber; and when the accustomed
early hour for retirement came I knelt with the other children
and worshipped as of old. My father was happy, my mother
was reconciled to the change, for Claire had been recognized
at The Mansion, and I went to bed and rested through a dreamless
sleep until the morning light summoned me to new changes
and new duties.